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"Après moi, le déluge" (pronounced[apʁɛmwalədelyʒ];lit. 'After me, the flood') is aFrench expression attributed to KingLouis XV of France, or in the form "Après nous, le déluge" (pronounced[apʁɛnulədelyʒ];lit. 'After us, the flood') toMadame de Pompadour, hisfavourite.[1][2] It is generally regarded as anihilistic expression of indifference to whatever happens after one is gone.[3][2][clarification needed] Its meaning was translated in 1898 byE. Cobham Brewer in the forms "When I am dead the deluge may come for aught I care", and "Ruin, if you like, when we are dead and gone".[4]
One account says that Louis XV's downcast expression while he was posing for the artistMaurice Quentin de La Tour inspired Madame de Pompadour to say:"Il ne faut point s'affliger; vous tomberiez malade. Après nous, le déluge."[1][note 1] Another account states that the Madame used the expression to laugh off ministerial objections to her extravagances.[4] The phrase is also often seen as foretelling theFrench Revolution and the corresponding ruin brought to France.[5][better source needed]
The phrase is believed to date from after the 1757Battle of Rossbach, which was disastrous for the French.[1]
BiographerMichel Antoine thought that the remark "Après moi, le déluge" was actually a prediction that the upcoming passing ofHalley's Comet in 1759 would cause a literal flood, similar to theGenesis flood having been blamed on it as well.[6][clarification needed][7][better source needed][note 2]
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A phrase of similar meaning to the title phrase is attributed to the Arabic poetAbu Firas al-Hamdani who died in 968 AD; the phrase translates as, "If I die of thirst, may it never rain again".[according to whom?][citation needed] The phrase in the original text is "إذا مِتُّ ظمآنًا فلا نزلَ القطرُ".[8]
Karl Marx used the phrase inDas Kapital (1867) stating, "Après moi, le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation."[9][10][full citation needed]
Fyodor Dostoevsky applies the phrase in his writings to describe theselfishness andapathy of certain corrupting values.[citation needed][original research?] He used it inThe Idiot, (serialised beginning in 1868) as an epigraph for an article written by one of the characters of the novel.[citation needed][original research?] During the trial of Dimitri Fyodorovich Karamazov inThe Brothers Karamazov (serialised beginning in 1879), the prosecution uses the expression to describe the attitude of the defendant's reprobate father and to lament the deterioration of Russian values more generally.[citation needed][original research?]
Arthur Moeller van den Bruck was fond of using the phrase, as in:
The liberal has flourished at all periods. The nobody is always eager to imagine himself a somebody. The man who is a misfit in his own society is always a liberal out ofamour propre. The disinterestedness of the conservative cherishes the sacredness of a cause that shall not die with him; the liberal says:Après moi, le déluge. Conservatism is rooted in the strength of man; liberalism battens on his weakness. The liberal's conjuring trick consists in turning others' weakness to his own account, living at other men's expense, and concealing his art with patter about ideals. This is the accusation against him. He has always been a source of gravest danger.[11]
D. H. Lawrence used the phrase in "Whitman" (1923), calling it "the soul's last shout and shriek, on the confines of death".[12][full citation needed] In other of his writings of the 1920s, Lawrence uses the expression a number of times,[original research?] calling it "the tacit utterance of every man", in his "crisis" of unbearable "loneliness ... surrounded by nullity".[13][non-primary source needed] But "you mustn't expect it to wait for your convenience," he warns the dissolute "younger generation";[14][non-primary source needed] "the real deluge lies just ahead of us".[15][non-primary source needed]
Kurt Vonnegut uses "Après moi le déluge" in his novelPlayer Piano (1952), when the main character Paul talks to Doctor Pond.[citation needed][original research?]
Jack Kerouac's last essay, titled "After Me, the Deluge", was published in the LA Times on 10/26/69, five days after his death. It is a somewhat bitter reconsideration of the so-calledBeat Generation, which he was credited with inspiring.
Singer-songwriterRegina Spektor included "Après moi, le déluge" in the chorus of her song "Après Moi" from her 2006 albumBegin to Hope, a song later covered byPeter Gabriel in his AlbumScratch My Back.[non-primary source needed]
après moi le déluge After I'm dead nothing will matter. This cliché, literally meaning "after me, the flood," was allegedly said in slightly different form in 1757 by Madame de Pompadour to Louis XV after Frederick the Great defeated the French and Austrians at Rossbach. (She put itaprès nous le déluge, "after us the flood.") The flood alludes to the biblical flood in which all but those in Noah's ark perished. The phrase is still always stated in French.
Del'uge.After me the Deluge ["Aprés moi le Déluge"]. When I am dead the deluge may come for aught I care. Generally ascribed to Prince Metternich, but the Prince borrowed it from Mme. Pompadour, who laughed off all the remonstrances of ministers at her extravagance by saying, "Aprés nous le déluge" (Ruin if you like, when we are dead and gone).
Dostoevsky's figures voluntarily leap into nihilism and try to be themselves within its boundaries. The nihility expressed in "If there is no God, everything is permitted,"... or "après moi le déluge," provides a principle whose sincerity they try to live out to the end.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)Karl Marx, who repeated the phrase in his Das Kapital: 'Après moi le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every capitalist nation. Hence capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society.'
après nous le déluge ... 'After us the flood.' Used to express complete indifference to what may happen when one is gone. /Origin / Early 19th century; earliest use found in Richard Edgeworth (1744–1817), educational writer and engineer. From French après nous le déluge, lit. 'after us the flood,' reputed comment of Madame de Pompadour to Louis XV after the French defeat at Rossbach in 1757 from après after + nous us + le the + déluge, apparently as alteration of après moi le déluge.
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